Budgeting each bite

Crunch Time: Baked Potato

Hey Foodies! For our university, this is the week before exams meaning it is full of stress, deadlines and late nights. Last night, I found myself needing to eat dinner but having zero time to prepare anything, so looking at the bag of potatoes in my pantry I was inspired to have a baked potato. I know you are probably thinking making a baked potato isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel, but some how it ended up being the best baked potato I have ever had so I thought I would share it with you all. Here is what you will need:

1 potato

1 tbsp. olive oil

salt

pepper

aluminum foil

assorted potato toppings (I chose cheese and ranch dressing)

First, preheat the oven to 350⁰. Wash your potato, then put it in the center of a piece of aluminum foil (large enough to cover the potato). Pierce the potato with a fork a few times so the steam can escape while it cooks. Coat the potato in a little olive oil and then sprinkle the pepper and salt on top. Roll the potato around in the foil to cover the entire potato, then wrap it up. Bake in the oven for approximately 1 hour for a small to medium potato and 1.5 hours for a larger potato. Then cut open your potato and top with your favorite things. Here are some ideas: chili, cheese, sour cream, butter, plain greek yogurt, ranch dressing, marinara sauce, bacon, chives, salsa and broccoli. This is the best way to bake a potato because you just put it in the oven and leave it, so there is zero energy and attention required as well as no messy clean up, leaving you more time to get in some studying. Plus the olive oil on the outside gives the potato skin a great texture and flavor. Enjoy foodies and happy stressing 🙂